Is this where the left in this country has sunk to?
Move-on.org and Common Cause filed a complaint with the FTC claiming that Fox News’ slogan ‘Fair and Balanced’ violates the FTC’s prohibition against deceptive advertising.(WSJ July 20)
They can’t stop American’s freedom of choice, so they are attempting to litigate our choices away.
This is pathetic -
[quote]rainman wrote:
Move-on.org and Common Cause filed a complaint with the FTC claiming that Fox News’ slogan ‘Fair and Balanced’ violates the FTC’s prohibition against deceptive advertising.(WSJ July 20)[/quote]
It IS deceptive. FNC is neither fair or balanced, yet they have attempted to copywrite that phrase and prevent others from even using it. If other organizations which truly ARE “fair and balanced” can no longer use it, Fox News sure as hell shouldn’t be allowed to either.
That’s a real stretch, even for you. Please explain how the fuck requiring FNC to obey truth in advertising laws in any way impacts your “freedom of choice”. On second thought never mind, that kind of bullshit rationalization I can do without.
Most of your posts are, rainman, but you may have obtained a new high with this one.
It is false advertising to say in your advertising that you are Fair And Balanced, if you aren’t Fair and Balanced.
The lawsuit has nothing to do with free speech or the content of Fox’s programming, or censorship. This is not a challenge to Fox News’ content, only to the specific claim about Fox News being Fair And Balanced. If Fox News has nothing to worry about, and is actually Fair and Balanced, then this lawsuit will be over fast.
In related news, there is a new documentary called “OUTFOXED” about how FoxNews staffers repeat the GOP talking points, as directed by the higher-ups at the network. Network bigwigs send out a daily memo telling staffers what sort of approach they should take, when writing and talking about the days’ news. Not surprisingly, the daily memo always reflects the GOP talking points.
“OUTFOXED” features FoxNews staffers appearing with faces blurred and voices disguised, talking about how the news at Fox is slanted hard to the right. Supposedly some of the interviews are poorly disguised, and you can get a good idea who is being interviewed!
The head of the FTC is giving this complaint the exact amount of attention it deserves:
For Release: July 19, 2004
Statement of Federal Trade Commission Chairman Timothy J. Muris on the Complaint Filed Today by MoveOn.org
I am not aware of any instance in which the Federal Trade Commission has investigated the slogan of a news organization. There is no way to evaluate this petition without evaluating the content of the news at issue. That is a task the First Amendment leaves to the American people, not a government agency.
Come to think of it though, it might be interesting to see the litigation arising from “All the news that’s fit to print.”
Fox looked pretty stupid when it sued Al Franken for trademark infringement over this phrase – now these groups look just plain pathetic (See FTC statement above).
Aside from the sheer ludicrousness of challenging a definition that isn’t precise (i.e. “fair and balanced”) as “false advertising”, one would think that Common Cause and other “nonpartisan” groups wouldn’t want to go monkeying around in that area:
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/000075.htm
WOBBLY WATCHDOGS
By Michelle Malkin ? June 22, 2004 02:51 PM
How many times have you read a story about ethics or campaign finance that quotes “non-partisan” groups such as the Center for Responsive Politics, Common Cause, Democracy 21, Public Citizen and the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington? (A Nexis search I just ran for “non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics” brings up 421 hits.)
Well, Roll Call unmasks the partisan stripes (or rather, spots) of these wobbly watchdogs. For those who don’t have subscriptions, here’s a snippet:
Since Republicans took control of Congress a decade ago, leading government watchdog groups have relentlessly pursued allegations of ethics broaches and fundraising abuses against GOP leaders ranging from retiring Rep. Nick Smith of Michigan to Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas.
But the groups have gone comparatively easy on Democrats - and a recent look through campaign-finance figures shows that officials of five leading money-in-politics watchdogs have given money almost exclusively to Democrats since 1994, when Republicans took over Congress.
According to the nonpartisan PoliticalMoneyLine, officials at Common Cause, the Center for Responsive Politics, Democracy 21, Public Citizen and the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington have donated a total of $62,000 to Democrats over the past decade.
During the same period, the watchdog groups have given just $2,000 to Republicans...Said one House GOP leadership aide: "It seems 'nonpartisan watchdog' is Latin for 'active Democrat contributor.' Why they continue to get quoted as independent observers blows my mind."
There’s more the story could have added. According to one Hill source, nearly all of these watchdog groups are funded with money from the hyper-partisan Bush-basher George Soros: Public Campaign, $1.2 million; Public Citizen, $100,000; Common Cause, $600,000; Democracy 21, $250,000.
Moreover, a board member for the Center for Responsive Politics gave money to one of Nancy Pelosi’s Leadership PACs during the same time they were silent about her ethically-challenged practice of operating two leadership PACs. And another board member for the Center for Responsive gave money to corruptocrats Rep. Dan Rostenkowski and Sen. Carol Mosely-Braun.
So, who’s watching the watchdogs?
This just in:
Common Cause and Moveon.org to sue Miller Lite because its beer is not less filling, nor does it taste great.
This is not a freedom of choice issue. If FNC cannot use their slogan “Fair and Balanced”, they can still broadcast news. They just can’t say their news is “Fair and Balanced”.
Besides, if FNC trademarks (not copyrights) the slogan “fair and balanced”, then no other news organisation can call themselves “fair and balanced” without entering a trademark dispute. That unfairly restricts their ability to describe themselves.
However, FNC can use their trademark whether they are fair and balanced or not. And that would violate truth in advertising.
Theoretically, purely descriptive trademarks are supposed to be forbidden, but the Patent and Trademark Office has apparently stopped giving a shit. This became most obvious to me when Mustang Software trademarked “The World’s Most Popular” with absolutely no factual basis for it.
I think technically, no news organisation is perfectly fair and balanced, so it’s an assertion nobody should be making.
tme -
Is coke the ‘Real Thing’, does it ‘Add Life’.
Let’s then sue Coca-Cola for deceptive advertising.
Does Dr. Semen-home’s magic cortisol blockers work? Let’s sue him.
Trim Spa? Let’s sue them as well.
This is a toitally baseless charge stemming from the fact that Fox News is blowing every other news channel out of the water.
Your so quick to agree with your left-wing radical buddies that you fail to use your brain.
What is deceptive? Use facts.
Show me where Fox is misleading people into paying for something that they are not getting?
Prove they are not fair, or balanced. You can’t because you are too busy swallowing what moveon.org is spewing.
When was the last time you even tuned into Fox News?
You, my friend,are the pathetic one.
Lumpy -
Outfoxed is a documentary on the same order of F-911. It’s a propaganda piece put together by the left.
I guess I could counter with something from Matt Drudge - would you trust that as a source?
WOW! How does somebody get beyond partisan, to the point of being hyper-partisan? That sounds impressive.
My guess is that it’s similar to how criticizing the president makes somebody a Bush-Basher, only on steroids.
I love it when people say they are not fair or balanced… Please, Please, Please give me an example of something that was not in balance when they were giving the news. I’m not talking about O’Reilly, Hannity and Colmes or Greta Van Susteren. They are news commentators like Chris Matthews or Larry King. Of course Hannity and Colmes are going to slant stuff they’re way. That’s the great part of that show.
With that said, I find it funny that they are attacking the most succesful news organization on television. Think CNN and MSNBC are a little jealous?
FN consistently has twice or triple the number of viewers of CNN, MSNBC and CNBC. Why? You figure it out.
Maybe more people watch because they like better programming. I find the shows on other channels boring as hell. Although I don’t agree with them all the time, it’s still interesting to watch O’Reilly and Hannity and Colmes.
Maybe it is because people do get Fair and Balanced news with FN.
My local news station says “Where the news comes first”. Do they get the story first all the time? No, they don’t, but that’s they’re slogan.
The lawsuit will go nowhere…
Gotta go, The Radio Factor is on…
Man, I just realized how bad my spelling was in my previous post. Holy crap… They’re??? Their… Typing to fast…
Let me apologize to those who had to subject themselves to my illiteracy.
The lawsuit will go nowhere, but the public might just hear about the allegations. They may also be presented with the reasons of the lawsuit.
Perhaps that is the whole point of the lawsuit?
As to whether it is fair and balanced, that depends on whether or not you are “balanced” to the right or to the left yourself.
Lumpy,
That would make you a “Mega, hyper 6’ 7” roided out Bush basher." You are the king man!
[quote]vroom wrote:
The lawsuit will go nowhere, but the public might just hear about the allegations. They may also be presented with the reasons of the lawsuit.
Perhaps that is the whole point of the lawsuit?
As to whether it is fair and balanced, that depends on whether or not you are “balanced” to the right or to the left yourself.[/quote]
You don’t think that the allegations are already out there?
The reasons for the lawsuit are not going to be made public - not by moveon anyhow. It would make them look childish and petty.
[quote]vroom wrote:
As to whether it is fair and balanced, that depends on whether or not you are “balanced” to the right or to the left yourself.[/quote]
Not true. Fox news pisses off both the left and the right. 
I’ve heard it from both sides of the fence personally.
Apparently moveon.org is launching a phone campaign to coincide with this. We have a bunch of muppets calling in the office telling us to bring Rupert Murdoch in for a hearing. These are the same morons that called in asking us to “censor president bush”…mind you I said censor, not censure because less that 5% actually understood what the little card that moveon.org had sent them really said.
I am going to love pissing all these jokers off.
rainjack,
I think it’s pretty clear that part of the lefts strategy for control is to litigate rather than legislate.
If they tried to legislate some of their unrealistic concepts they would be voted out of office and the republicans would control two full branches of the federal government, the legislative and executive…oops they do, don’t they?